Height Adjustment & Travel, Why parallel? Options

[Joseph Mills]

My 914 goes to the shop next week for alignment: 1.5 to 2 degrees neg camber front, 2 to 2.5 neg rear with 1/16" toe-out front, 1/16" toe-in rear. Tires are Hoosier A3S03's.

I have found a few posts that seem to indicate that when the A-arms and trailing arms are parallel to the ground, you have maximized your cars height. Is this in fact, correct?

If so, why is this level preferred? If you go below this height is suspension geometry adversely effected? How much wheel travel is left at this point?

Joseph
'75 914 2.0L AX bound

[J P Stein]

He,he.....this is great stuff.

Prior to my mods, bout -.25 was all that was available at the front. Dropping the ride height bout an inch gave me -.9 deg.

At the rear, I had about the same as the front. Dropping the ride height .75 and pulling all the shims(6mm worth) gave me -4......oops (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)
4mm went back in and now there is about -2.2.

The front is about ready to re-check....dunno there, yet. Shooting for -2+.

Off hand, I'd say there is a "bit" of variation from car to car (insert tounge in cheek smiley here).

Drew:
Stick your haid under the back of the car and see if there are any shims in there (above the outter suspension mount). If there are some on both sides
I'd find a new alignment guy. If there are none, I'd drop the ride height a bit, .5 inch or so.